San José State University football held it’s first pep rally to get campus excited for its first football game of the season on Wednesday.
The game will be at home for the Spartans, who will be facing off against Sacramento State University on Thursday at 7 p.m., according to the SJSU event calendar.
Mari Fuentes-Martin, SJSU Vice President for student affairs, hopes this event gets school spirit up and encourages students to go to the game.
“As we get later into this season, we’re going to be playing teams from our conference, and that should (get) a bigger turnout,” Fuentes-Martin said.
Associated Students (A.S) event director, Kenne Jackson, Event Director, explained that A.S. have been planning the rally for around two to three months.
“Over the summer we meet, we talk about getting athletics involved, football, getting the president to come,” Jackson said.
Jackson says another goal of the event was to celebrate the kick off for the fall season for SJSU sports, which included the appearance of the women’s basketball team.
Lines going back several tens of students could also be seen at the event as students lined up to get free pizza.
Leading the rally was the SJSU marching band and cheerleading team, who played music and danced together throughout the event.
Head coach of the cheerleading team, Heather Gallegos, has been preparing the team for this event since August.
“They practice three days a week, and they also lift weights twice a week; we’ve been preparing for a really long time,” Gallegos said.
The marching band, dance team, and cheerleading team will put together what they have practiced on Thursday for their halftime show.
Fabio Wilhelm, an international transfer student from Switzerland said he’s planning on going to the game.
“We don’t have American football in our country, so we are super excited to see the Spartan(s) win,” Wilhelm said.
Fuentes-Martin hopes for as many students to come out as possible for the first football game of the season.
“I’m really enjoying all the school spirit that I’m seeing and I hope that means we get people to turn out for the game,” Fuentes-Martin said.
